Doggone Dead (7 page)

“So let me get this straight – you climbed over the fence to get this little fella?” Rocky leaned back in his chair and chuckled. This was the biggest story that had hit the paper since Zelda Sue Stevens thought her pecan tree was waving to her. His grizzled face could have been that of a cowboy who had endured years of soul-draining dust on the trail. What Rocky had endured was years of slow news in a small town. Even with that, he had a gift for making even the most mundane bake sale into a true excitement. He chewed on his yellow Dixon Ticonderoga pencil and then added a few things to an overfilled yellow legal pad. He leaned forward in a confidential matter and asked, “Just how angry were you with this man for stealing your dog and then lying about it?”

I gasped and then had to laugh at his hard-boiled reporter approach. “Not angry enough to kill him.”

“So you admit a prior relationship with him.”

“If you count yelling at him through an intercom, then yes, we were involved.”

The front door to the quiet office opened, letting in a rush of heat from the street.

“Mr. Whitson?” A woman stood on the other side of the classified ad counter. Rocky rose from his squeaking ancient office chair and strode over, his cowboy boots clicking against the linoleum. I could see a small girl standing next to her, playing a handheld video game.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” Rocky smiled and took out a pad of forms for classifieds.

“You certainly can. I was wondering if there was going to be a photo layout of the contestants in the Miss Watermelon Pageant?” Oh God, another pageant mom. Carrying the requisite oversized handbag, she pulled out a slim leather binder and opened it on the counter. “As you can see, we have a full portfolio of Tiffy here. Would you rather have her formal attire or her jazzy casual look?”

Rocky took in a deep breath and smiled. “Quite impressive, ma’am. You’ve really done your homework …”

“I thank you. I feel my job is to manage my daughter’s pageant experience in a positive yet productive way ...”

“... but we aren’t doing any special layouts of the contestants. We will be featuring a picture of the winner once she’s crowned.”

The woman’s eyebrows raised in astonishment. “Really?” Her tone dropped ever so slightly at the end. This was not what mama wanted to hear.

“Yes, ma’am. The Miss Watermelon Pageant the paper is sponsoring is really more for fun than anything else. But of course, as you just put it so well, you want your daughter’s experience to be positive. Putting all the little girls' pictures in the paper might make it too competitive, don’t you think?”

“I think that is precisely what needs to be done. How can the community possibly have enough time to evaluate our little darlings if they can’t look at their photos at their leisure?”

“The community, as you put it, is not going to be judging the contest. The paper is.” The phone on Rocky’s desk rang, and he stepped back toward me. I wondered if I could possibly slip out the back door before the woman noticed I was there. “In fact, we have one of the judges right here.” He motioned toward me as he picked up the phone to answer it. I had been holding Butch in case he decided to leave a puddle on the floor, but now he squirmed out of my arms to the tile. I flashed a lopsided smile and waved. Zach ran after Butch, and the little girl put away her toy and started through the classified counter gate to pet the puppy.

The woman, whose face had formerly been a mixture of rage and dissatisfaction with the paper’s lack of publicity now turned on me. “Well, what a pleasure to get to meet you before the pageant Miss ... Miss?”

I think she expected me to use my pageant name, like “the former Miss Bluebonnet,” which I guess is a whole lot better than a stripper name. Alas, I had never trod the runway, so I would just have to introduce myself as “the Happy Hinter.”

“Hi, I’m Betsy Livingston. I write the Happy Hinter column for the newspaper.” The lady extended her hand with the overly heavy handbag strap weighing down her arm. She took her other hand and grabbed her daughter by the scruff of the neck, pulling her away from Zach and the puppy.

“Tiffy, this nice lady is going to be your judge. What do you have to say to her?”

“Um, nice to meet you.” She shyly put out her hand, and I shook it. “What’s your puppy’s name?”

“This is Butch,” Zach said. “He was dog-napped.”

“Dog-napped? Wow.” She was in absolute awe.

“Miss Livingston, let me leave you some of Tiffy’s portfolio. You will find some wonderful shots of her in here.”

“No, no. I couldn’t,” I answered.

“But you must,” she insisted.

“No, really, it wouldn’t be fair to have your daughter’s pictures and none of the other girls’ pictures. Let’s just save it all for pageant day, okay?”

She slapped the deep brown portfolio closed. “Of course.” She grabbed her daughter back from the puppy once again. “Tiffy, let’s go.”

“Aw mom, I was playing with the puppy.”

“We’ll be late for your dance class. Let’s go.”

Tiffy looked forlorn and slowly waved goodbye to Zach.

“Bye, Tiffy,” Zach said.

Rocky hung up the phone and reached for his cowboy hat. “Betsy, we’re going to have to reschedule. Got a story I need to go out on.” He grabbed his keys from his desk drawer.

“Sure, what’s the story?”

Rocky headed to the front of the office and flipped the lights and turned the “Open” sign to “Back Soon.” “Don’t know all the details yet. Have to tell you about it later.” We followed him out the door into the heat, quite similar to opening the oven door on Thanksgiving.

Deciding to celebrate Butch’s arrival back home, Zach and I picked up some hamburgers and headed for the town park. The park, which served as a town meeting place with a gazebo on one side and Lake Pecan on the other, had recently bought the land where the old Dairy Queen had stood and sectioned it off for a dog park. There were two sections, one side for big dogs and the other side for small dogs. There were several park benches under the pecan trees and a water fountain designed just for dogs squirting water at both low and high levels. Most of the time dogs didn’t mess with each other too much at the park. They were happy if someone, anyone, would just throw a ball. Butch went scrambling across the well-fertilized grass, his puppy paws clumsily padding the ground. I was surprised to see Sunshine the beagle taking a slurp of water. Standing next to her was the same man I had met outside Dr. Springer’s office. Upon seeing us he waved and walked over.

“I see you found your puppy. That’s great,” he said. Today he was dressed in maroon and navy plaid shorts and a T-shirt that revealed he’d visited the gym about a hundred times more than me this year.

“Yes, we did.” Should I explain the grisly circumstances of my rescue or spare this guy who was so new to town? Probably not a great commercial for the Chamber of Commerce to reveal to him that murder was alive and well in Pecan Bayou.

“He looks like he fared pretty well on his journey.” He looked down at his watch. “I really didn’t have time to do this, but Sunshine is having a hard time adjusting to the new house. My yard is fenced, but if there’s a hole anywhere she’ll snoop it out and squeeze through it. She found one, so here we are.” He picked up a suit jacket he had placed across a bench in the shade. “Nice to see you again, but I really have to be getting back to my office.” He pulled a leash out of his pocket, but stopped mid-stride and turned toward me. “Would it be too much for me to ask you if you would be interested in having dinner with me? I hear there’s a great restaurant on the bayou.”

This was a surprise. A nice, attractive guy asking me out while I perspired in the heat and brushed puppy paw dirt off my shorts. Had all the other single women in town moved away? I considered him for a moment and then the face of a stormy weatherman flashed through my brain.

“We could bring along your son as well. I just didn’t want to eat alone,” he added.

My lips formed a line. “Thank you for your invitation, but I think I need to pass. By the way, you’re right. Ben’s Bayou Restaurant is wonderful. I highly recommend the steak covered in onion sauce. It’s really good.”

He stepped back and bowed his head slightly. “I’ll have to order that, then.” He whistled for his dog, who came running over. Clipping his leash onto her collar, he started walking back to the gate. “Glad you got your dog back.”

I sat in the shaded area and unwrapped my cheeseburger. I set Zach’s bag of food on the bench, deciding to let him play just a little longer. I had been dating Leo Fitzpatrick for almost two years now, and the thought of being asked out by someone else just wasn’t on my radar. Leo lived in Dallas and worked as a meteorologist for the weather service there. He was raising his sister’s son after her untimely death, and even though our relationship was long-distance, it seemed to be working for now. The man with the beagle was handsome, well-dressed and looked successful, but you could have said that about my first husband. My phone rang in my purse, and I reached over for it.

“Betsy? Where are you?” My dad asked.

“We’re over at the dog park with Butch. Rocky had to cancel his interview for some big news story. Know anything about that?”

“Uh, no. I don’t know what he’s up to. Probably a big stink over at the diner when they ran out of peanut butter pie. I packed my lunch today, so I’ll head on over. I got somethin’ I want to talk to you about.”

Within ten minutes, my dad pulled up in his squad car and stepped through the squeaky gate of the chain link fence. “Hey Butch, how ya doing there, fella?” Butch ran up to him in full-tilt crazy mode.

“He’ll love you even more for part of your sandwich.” My dad straightened up in his blue uniform, a little thin for a man in his fifties, but that probably had something to do with how hard he worked. A faint whiff of Old Spice drifted over.

He settled down on the park bench next to me as Zach, grown tired of playing, now slurped on his milkshake. Pulling a ham sandwich out of a baggie, he motioned to Zach. “Say, Zach, why don’t you go play with Butch for a minute while I talk to your mother.”

“It’s hot out there.” Zach’s cheeks were red from his exertion. Butch had settled down next to him, panting so hard his tongue looked like it would fall out of his mouth.

“Just give me a minute. Why don’t you go squirt Butch with the hose?” There was a “dog washing” area with a garden hose hooked up over at the former drive-through area of the Dairy Queen.

“Okay.” With the idea of having permission to play in the water, Zach shot off the bench.

My dad swiped at some sweat on his nose. “Artie at the coroner's office says it was blunt-force trauma. Somebody beaned him on the head pretty good.”

“Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

“Not yet, and the murder weapon is definitely that concrete pedestal you found in the bushes. There were pieces of Grayson’s brain on it.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“It’s more like what you’re going to do.”

I wadded up my wax-coated burger wrapper. “I don’t work for the police, did you forget?”

“Libby Loper is a prime suspect because of the fact that Grayson was stealing her blind. We’ve questioned her some, but I think she might be hiding something. A few harmless questions couldn’t hurt. I’d like you to go over and offer to help clean and reorganize her house – and in the process if you come across something, then leave it there in an obvious place,” he said. “It is part of what you do, after all. You write organizational tips in the paper all the time. Well, here’s your chance to use some of them. What do you say?”

“I say it’s crazy. What if she figures out what I’m up to?”

“If we are going to issue a search warrant anyway, what’s the difference? Your efforts will help the rest of us to actually find something before Christmas.”

“Okay,” I consented.

“Now that’s the cowboy way, darlin’.”

The next morning as I ate my cereal and watched the sun shine through the kitchen windows, I unfolded the latest edition of the Pecan Bayou Gazette. Looking for my pictures of the Bonnet Farm, I didn’t have to search too long. My picture of the shed was front and center, but not with the headline “Watermelons Bountiful at Bonnet Farm.” Instead it said, “Lt. Judd Kelsey Accused of Planting Evidence.” The picture I had taken of the outbuildings showed the many tourists visiting the farm that day. My little Miss Watermelon hopeful and her mother were there, and my father was bent over, looking like he was placing something on the ground near Coop Bonnet’s red Corvette. I couldn’t believe Rocky put this in without telling me about it first. I read the article below the photo.

Judd Kelsey was accused by Clay Bonnet of planting drug paraphernalia in the car of his son, Coop Bonnet, leading him to be arrested for possession on Tuesday. The new district attorney, Adam Cole, is pursuing an investigation of Officer Kelsey, who has been put on limited duty until the issue is resolved.

“I was sure he was planting something on my son’s car, and then he comes up with a bag of pot,” said Clay Bonnet. “This is police harassment, and we will fight it all the way up to the Supreme Court if need be.”

Inset into my own picture was a picture of a familiar face. This was the guy with the beagle. His handsome smile and kind face looked so trustworthy. Not the first time I had been duped by that sort of thing. He was the new district attorney investigating my dad?

I grabbed for the phone, unsure who to call first – Dad or Rocky. I started to dial Rocky’s number when my phone rang in my hand, almost scaring me to death.

“Betsy. Have you read the paper?” Aunt Maggie asked on the other end of the line.

“I just saw it.”

“Did you take that picture?”

“Yes, I did, but I had no idea it would lead to Dad being investigated. I was just about to call Rocky and ask him why he didn’t warn me he changed the story.”

“Rocky can’t help himself when he sniffs out a story. You have to realize that.”

“Even when the story involves a friend?”

“Especially if it involves a friend. He would see it as an opportunity for more access to news.”

“I get your point. Rocky is Pecan Bayou’s one and only paparazzi.”

“I’ve never heard your dad talk about this district attorney, so I don’t even know how serious all of this is. I do know my brother would never plant evidence.”

“I’ve met the district attorney,” I said quietly.

“You’re in league with both the newspaper and the devil, – I mean, the DA?”

“No, I’m not in league with anyone. I met him outside Dr. Springer’s office. He was very kind when we told him about losing Butch. Then I met him again at the dog park.”

“You met him at the dog park? Do you mean you happened to see him there or you ‘met’ him?”

“No, I didn’t meet him that way. I just ran into him, that’s all. He asked me out on a date.”

“But you’re not in cahoots with him in any way?” Maggie said slowly as if trying to understand why I seemed to be involved with every part of my father’s crisis.

“No, Aunt Maggie, I’m not. Why would I ever do anything to harm my father?”

“You’re right, I know. I just wish I could find out more about this guy. He could be just going along with Clay Bonnet to humor him or maybe he really believes him. It might be a way to clean out what he thinks might be a corrupt small-town police force. Have you talked to your father?” Maggie asked.

“I was just about to call him when you rang through,” I said.

“Well, don’t. He’s in a meeting with Chief Wilson. I called him, and he said for me to be calm and we would discuss it as a family later.”

A family meeting. Who were we, the Brady Bunch? My dad had to be pretty upset about this. He could end up losing his job because of my picture. It really was my fault, and of course that would be the one Rocky would choose for the front page of the paper. Like Maggie, I just wish I knew if Adam Cole would seriously pursue this. Maybe I could call him? I could probably get his number from the city offices directory, or even Dr. Springer could help. A thought occurred to me. Maybe I could do even more than that.

“Aunt Maggie, what would you say if I accepted that date with Adam Cole?”

“Oh, honey, I don’t think your womanly wiles could change his mind.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. So far, he doesn’t seem to know I’m the daughter of his cop under investigation. I could just casually talk to him about his work and find out what he thinks of the case.”

“What about Leo?”

“What
about
Leo?” I countered. “Even though Adam Cole is a very handsome man, I’m not dating him for real. I’m going undercover.”

“Don’t put it that way.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Well,” Maggie paused for a moment as she thought about it. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.” She was quiet again. “I don’t think you should tell your father about this. He’d shut you down quicker than a fireworks stand in a drought.”

“Snap, crackle, pop.”